All the Little Things
Weston
Well, fuck. That didn’t go as planned.
Zane and Tori were supposed to be my wingmen. To help me prove to this woman who was now living in my fucking apartment with me that I was a fine, upstanding citizen and she had nothing to worry about.
But also, what the fuck was I supposed to say to her? The last woman who’d spent more than a few hours here hadn’t left my bed for anything longer than a bathroom break. The last woman I’d lived with had once been the love of my life—the woman I thought I’d be with until I died.
Now, I had a woman I didn’t know and certainly wasn’t going to fucking sleep with staring at the baby in my arms with hearts in her eyes.
Daisy made one of those little squeaks that sounded a bit like a puppy’s toy, then settled once again against my chest.
I guessed that was my cue.
Time to face the music.
I turned away from the door. For some reason, I had this insane notion that if I turned slowly enough, the thing I feared wouldn’t be behind me—like I was a child afraid of the monster from that scary movie I wasn’t supposed to be watching, that was stalking me but couldn’t see me when I moved at a snail’s pace.
Not that I was afraid of Dani.
Not that she was any kind of monster.
Dani stood in the middle of my living room, fingers clasped in front of her, looking like she was a rabbit caught in my sights. Like I was the monster she feared.
Despite having been in her presence for nearly an hour now, I hadn’t really looked at her while Tori was here. Now that they were gone, and I didn’t have my ex-wife stopping me, I felt a bit like a pervert as I took Dani in.
Her long, mousey blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck.
Her glasses had plastic, tortoise shell frames—not too thick, almost trendy in a vintage kind of way.
She wore a white blouse so thin you could see through it, a white T-shirt underneath.
Her pants looked like they came right out of the seventies—wide-legged, a burnt orange fabric with little white polka dots scattered all over, a bow tied like a belt around her middle.
She was stylish, in a way. Plain, not fancy.
Not like Tori—there were certainly no power suits balled up in her suitcase.
And definitely not like the women I fucked—tight fitting clothes with short skirts and low-cut tops.
In a way, Dani reminded me of my mother.
Yeah. Not gonna touch that one with a twenty-foot pole.
I smiled, the corners of my lips tilting up just a little, trying to relieve the awkwardness between us.
Daisy squeaked again, and I winced, because I knew that sound.
It preceded her whining, then screaming if you didn’t get her bottle to her mouth fast enough.
I turned my daughter in my arms, then took a few slow steps toward Dani. Cautious, so I wouldn’t scare her more.
“This is Daisy.” The words were more rasped than spoken, pride and something else I didn’t want to examine strangling my throat.
“Hello, Daisy,” Dani said, her voice close to a whisper. She uncurled her fingers, clenched her hands into loose fists once, twice, and again. Her gaze flashed to mine before she was looking at Daisy again. “Can I hold her?”
That tightness in my throat traveled down to my chest. For a second, I pulled Daisy closer to me.
I’d kept my daughter from Dani so far—partly because I loved her and parting with her felt unbearable sometimes.
There was another reason, another something I didn’t want to examine either, that had to do with the way the woman always had her eyes on Daisy.
She’d connected with Zalea instantly, and it warmed my fucking heart.
I’d watched as they’d interacted at the table, talking about Zalea’s picture like it was the most important thing in the world.
Even Zane had noticed, commenting, “She’s good with her,” under his breath as we watched them from across the room.
I wanted to savor this first meeting but also keep an eye on Dani to make sure my daughters would be safe. Still, I’d hired her to live here and take care of my girls. I couldn’t very well keep my nanny from holding my child.
Shifting slightly, I adjusted my grip on Daisy, getting ready to pass her off. Before I could, Zalea popped out of her bedroom, walked right up to Dani, and took her hand.
“Miss Dani?”
My nanny’s attention left me, and it felt like I was watching a balloon deflate. Dani’s shoulders relaxed and tension fled her body like a gust of air as she looked at Zalea. “Yes, Miss Zalea?”
“I made you a picture for your bedroom.”
Still holding my daughter’s hand, Dani dropped to one knee beside her—getting down to her level—and took hold of the construction paper with her free hand. She studied it, and a rainbow of emotions washed over her, clouding her face.
Suddenly, I was worried. Zalea had struggled with my and Tori’s divorce, and anything that could make our brand-new nanny cry certainly wasn't good, right?
I edged closer, but they held the paper between them at an angle I couldn’t see. Fear clogged my throat. “What’d you make, Zalea?”
Dani glanced at my daughter, gave a smile and a slight nod, then held the paper out to me. I squatted down carefully, adjusted Daisy in my arms, and took hold of one side of the paper.
The picture was similar to the ones she’d drawn before.
A man surrounded by flowers. Pink ones, white ones, red ones.
Up in the sky, a bright orange and yellow sun.
And on the side of the page, another, different flower, something I’d never seen her draw before—yellow center, like a daisy, but with yellow petals instead of white.
Except, not all the petals were yellow. Some were thin with little white puffs at the tips, and those wispy little puffs hovered in the air around the man and the rest of the flowers. One little puff was held in his outstretched hand.
“It’s a dandelion,” Zalea said, “because her name is Dani. Dani, dandelion. Dani, dandelion. And here.” She came around beside me, pointed at the puff in the man’s hand. “She’s the wish you made, Daddy. She can love us and be with us forever!”
“That’s, um…” I couldn’t fucking speak. Dani’s cheeks grew deep pink as she peered up at me, a lovely color that highlighted her cheekbones and made her thin lips stand out.
My own cheeks burned, the warming sensation swirling down my neck to other parts of my body.
Embarrassment over what my daughter had implied, over how the thought of keeping Dani, with that pretty blush and her heart eyes, wormed its way through me and lit me up.
Damn, she was pretty.
I cleared my throat, handed the paper back to Dani. “It’s a very pretty picture, Zalea.”
My daughter beamed, eyes gleaming bright, bright, bright as her smile stretched from ear to ear. “Do you like it?” she asked Dani, and Dani nodded, smiled, though it didn’t match the look on my daughter’s face.
“I love it. It’s beautiful.”
Zalea giggled as she bounced on her toes. Then she twirled away, arms spread at her sides like she was a wisp of a petal floating on a current of air, before she disappeared back into her room.
Daisy squeaked, louder this time. Dani didn’t look up from the floor where her gaze had landed while Zalea floated away.
The back of my neck prickled, and I rubbed at it, trying to wipe away the heavy feeling in the room.
A second squeak prompted me to rise to my feet, and I was grateful for a reason to move on from this entirely-too-awkward situation my daughter had thrust us into.
“That’s Daisy’s tell,” I said, shrugging away the past few minutes like they’d never happened.
Better to move on than to have her think I’m some desperate fool waiting for love to land in my lap.
“Her squeaks turn to whines that turn to screaming in about five minutes flat if you don’t have a bottle ready and in her mouth. ”
Dani rose from where she knelt on the floor, eyes still downcast, cheeks still flushed.
“Come on.” I shifted Daisy, her tiny head in one hand, her little tush in the other as I held her out to Dani. “I’ll show you where everything is and then you can feed her if you want.”
There was a little scar on Dani’s forehead. I kept my attention there as she took Daisy from me and cradled her in her arms. I was afraid to look at her face and see things there I didn’t want to see.
But the entire time I was fixing the bottle and showing Dani around the kitchen, my mind and my gaze kept drifting back to the white line that creased her forehead, cut through her eyebrow and—if I looked close enough, I could see it—ended at the top of her cheek.
The next time her attention locked on me, I saw something else too.
Her eye—it was the slightest bit off, drooping to the side so slightly it was barely noticeable. There but hidden behind every other ordinary thing about her.
Until it was all I could see.